Watch: When 20,000 internet users tuned in to watch people try to cross a puddle in England

A small puddle in Newcastle in the UK reached height of fame and had more than 20,000 people glued to their screens for several hours on Wednesday.

A live Periscope feed set up by employees of a nearby office went viral as people from different parts of the country tuned in to watch ordinary passersby attempt various inventive ways in order to cross a 10-foot-wide puddle without getting their feet wet, reports The Telegraph.

Screengrab from footage of the livestream. YouTube

Employees of Drummond Central, a marketing agency, had been watching people cross the puddle from their office window for several weeks, Beth Hazon, managing director, told the BBC. It had been raining heavily in the area for the past month and the employees had a clear view of the puddle from their office at Jesmond Building. They decided to stream it for the amusement of all their employees but the nature of the internet is such that it just caught on throughout the country. People started tweeting about it and #DrummondPuddleWatch became a trending hashtag.

Richard Rippon, whose phone was used for the broadcast, told The Guardian that his phone battery almost died during the broadcast. It became "addictive" and he "feels great" that it was being watched by so many office goers, with many offices even putting up the stream on their giant screens.

The puddle livestream became so popular that people began coming in for the specific reason of crossing the puddle. Some of the more enterprising ones even brought surfboards and lilos with them.

One enterprising Briton found a way to make a quick buck. The entrepreneur filled a 600 ml bottle with water from the puddle and listed it for sale on eBay.co.uk. According to Mirror, the original price was set at 99 pence. At the time Firstpost checked it out, when the listing still had one day and seven hours left to expire, it had received 30 bids and the price had risen to GBP 65,900.

As is the case with any viral story, there were also rumours that this was a publicity stunt since the livestream was set up by a marketing agency. But Hazon refuted it, telling the BBC, “I'd love to say there's some clever deep strategy but it is just genuinely hilarious."

While the livestream ended as the sun set, many YouTubers saved clips from the Periscope feed. Watch the highlights in the video below: